


i want to forgive

by guycecil



Category: Tales of Xillia
Genre: Gen, Spoilers, fix-it i guess, jude is barely there tbh, takes place after the Thing with alvin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-12 23:04:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5684602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guycecil/pseuds/guycecil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leia saves the day, Jude takes a nap, and Alvin... figures something out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i want to forgive

**Author's Note:**

> We went through Milla's side the first time we played, so I missed out on that lovely little scene with Alvin, and now I'm dying, probably. Title taken from a translation of "Progress" by Hamasaki Ayumi, the opening theme for the game.

“Thank you so much, Leia,” he whispers. She smiles, and the air around her crackles, sizzles, buzzes, and somehow she jerks back just as a shot snaps through the air where she was.

Jude’s eyes are wide with shock, almost like they were half a second ago, but Leia moves, not waiting for him to respond. She shoves him behind her and readies her staff. “Try that again, asshole!” she yells.

Alvin’s hand is shaking -- she doesn’t think he’s realized it, but his whole body is shaking. She has no idea what happened, what Muzét said to him, but something in him is wrong. His breath comes short and fast. A part of her thinks he might collapse before he has the chance to do any real damage.

“Just…” The gun moves slightly, cracks. With a pinpoint twirl of her staff, Leia knocks the bullet away. Alvin’s face twists. He looks like he might cry.

“What’s the _point_?” he demands. He shoots again, and Leia deflects it once more. “Why bother? Just die!”

“That’s _exactly_ the point!” Leia yells back. She shoves Jude away just a little more, prepares to run if she has to. “Milla gave her life to save us. If we die then we ruin everything she worked for!”

“Milla died for _nothing_ ,” Alvin snaps. “Everything that we did, we did for _nothing_! Give up!”

“No.” She squares herself. “Milla died for us. If you want to kill us so badly, then shoot.”

His lips pull tight, his eyes nearly shut. He says nothing, and for a whole second, the forest is silent.

Leia is reaching for her mana a fraction of a second before she hears the crack, and she can only pray she’ll cast fast enough, and then --

The forest explodes in a glittering rain of mana. It falls slowly down on them, and Alvin drops the gun just enough to look up and watch it descend, but Leia can’t take her eyes off him.

Alvin’s arm falls all the way down to his side. Jude coughs behind her and stumbles, falling to his knees, maybe -- she can’t see. She’s too focused on Alvin.

“I…” He breathes hard. There’s something in his eyes -- or maybe it’s just the fading reflection of their arte. “Fuck,” he whispers. “Fuck!”

“Alvin…” She steps forward, slowly, but unhesitating. She carefully stows her staff and reaches out a hand. “Please. Milla wouldn’t want this.”

“I’m a fucking idiot,” he says, but he reaches out, and his fingers land in hers.

* * *

Jude has absolutely passed out, what little strength he had sapped out of him from their flight. But he’s eaten so little over the last weeks that Leia can easily carry him back on her own, which is good, because Alvin is little help. He follows them back to the cottage, but tucks himself away in a corner while Leia fits Jude in bed carefully.

He stays silent while she lights a fire in the fireplace, and continues to say nothing while she sets a stew to boil. She tries not to look at him, almost afraid she’ll find him watching her. She can’t quite find the guts to say anything until she fills two bowls with her half-decent stew and holds one out to him, letting the steam waft into his face.

He jolts like she’s woken him up, and his eyes flick up to her. “What’s this?”

“Lunch,” she says. “Or dinner, if you prefer. The sun’s already starting to set, so it’s whichever one you want, really.”

Carefully, he takes the bowl from her, eyes dropping. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” she says, and turns to drop into one of the chairs. She watches the fire keep the stew simmering while she eats -- she’s hesitant to put it out with Jude still sleeping, unsure if he’ll want to eat when he wakes up.

The silence in the room weighs on her like bricks -- like the Lance of Kresnik at full power. She’s suddenly on edge. She’s extended a hand, and he’s taken it, but the question now is what they’re going to do. Will they shake? Or will they pull each other down? Or will they move forward, hand in hand?

“Leia,” he says finally.

She breathes, fixes a curious smile on her face, and looks over to see him watching her, having barely touched his food. “Hmm?”

“I’m sorry,” he says. He starts to say something else, stops himself, looks away toward the door. Almost instantly, though, he casts his eyes down to the food in his lap. “Not that it means anything.”

“No, it…” She bites the inside of her cheek. “It means something. I know that whole ‘actions speak louder than words’ thing usually means more, but… Sometimes just saying something is an action, right?”

He looks like she’s the one who’s shot him when she says it. “Guess so,” he mumbles.

She watches him a moment longer, and then has to look away as well before she can speak again. “Just… promise me something, okay?”

She can feel his eyes on her, wary, unsure. “What?”

She swallows. “Promise me you wouldn’t have actually done it. I mean… Keeping secrets and telling lies is one thing, but actually hurting someone… That’s different, right?”

The silence stretches too long. “I don’t know,” he says. “Am I supposed to lie right now? Or hurt you with the truth?”

She chews on her lip, and finally looks back over at him. “You could have stopped yourself, right? If I hadn’t?”

“Leia,” he says, and his eyes are distant and pained, and it’s all the answer she needs.

“Well,” she mumbles. “At least you’re honest. For once.”

“I’m sorry,” he says again. It means something. She swears it does.

* * *

Time passes, but Jude still doesn’t wake. She carries a bowl of stew to his bedside and puts out the fire, tries to eat as much of what’s left of the food as she can so it doesn’t go to waste, and tosses out the rest. Alvin stays in his corner and fiddles with a tear in his coat, once he’s finished his own food. He sets his gun on the floor and leaves it there. She thinks it’s supposed to be some sort of peace offering, but she’s not sure quite what it means.

“About Jude,” Alvin says eventually, when the sun has fully set.

“What about him?” she asks. Suddenly she’s defensive -- maybe because he can say whatever he wants to her, and she can take it. But Jude has no walls right now. She tries not to think about how he just sat there, waiting for Alvin’s gun to fire.

“How long’s he been like that?” the mercenary asks.

“Since…” Leia trails off, hoping he’ll understand.

He folds his coat and sets it to the side. “I figured. And no change, in all that time?”

“Not much,” she says. “There was… a moment.” _Thank you so much, Leia,_ but it didn’t mean anything because a bullet fired and he pulled back. “But I don’t know if it was significant.”

Nothing, for a second. “He’ll get through it,” he says.

“I know he will!” She turns on him. “I’ve always believed in him, even when none of the rest of you did.”

He sighs and leans back against the wall. “I know you have. You’re better than us in a lot of ways. Better than me, anyway.”

And if _that_ doesn’t just take the wind right out of her sails. “Self-deprecation doesn’t make you sound any better, you know,” she mumbles. She turns to the sink and pushes up her sleeves to start on the dishes. “Don’t think you can just suck up and get off the hook.”

He’s suddenly right next to her, setting his bowl down next to the sink. “I would never,” he says.

“Never is a long time,” she says back. She tries not to shy away.

When he doesn’t move, she looks up at him, and tries not to think about how much bigger he is than her, how much stronger, how much less afraid of consequences. “Don’t you have something better to do than watch me do dishes?”

“I’m sorry,” he says again, and it’s not about the bowls.

“Yeah, you said that,” she says.

“Leia.” He raises a hand, and then drops it like he’s changed his mind. “What I did was wrong. I… I don’t know if I could have stopped myself. I don’t know if I would’ve even realized it until after I hurt one of you two. But it was still wrong, and…” His face twists again. “I’m sorry. I’m… I’m so sorry.”

She can’t hold eye contact with him -- there’s too much there, and it hurts to look at. “Say it about a hundred more times, and then maybe we’ll be getting somewhere,” she tries to joke.

“Even now you’re trying to be strong,” he says quietly.

“Somebody has to,” she responds. She still can’t look up. Her hands are shaking. “Milla’s not around, and Jude… Well.” She laughs. “So I’ll be strong enough for all of us.”

“You’re just a _kid_ ,” he says. “You shouldn’t have to be strong for anyone but yourself.”

She doesn’t know how to answer that.

And then he moves, so sudden that it startles her and she freezes up, half ready to kick him where it hurts and run, but all he does is pull her close and wrap his arms around her. She feels very small, and he feels very big, but he’s warm, and real, and alive, and some part of her had thought, with that look in his eye when he left, that he had disappeared to put an end to it himself. But here he is.

“What are you doing?” she asks, trying to laugh a little. “Are you okay?”

“I’m hugging you,” he says, and he sounds a little offended. “I’m trying to help.”

“You’re not exactly the hugging type,” she says.

He pulls back and holds her out at arm’s length. “Leia,” he says, and he’s serious again. “Everything I did was fucked up, and if there’s no way to fully make up for it, then fine. But at least let me help. You’re just a kid. There’s no reason you have to be strong enough for everyone on your own.” He smiles a little. “I’m about as weak as they come, but I think I can make myself be strong enough for you for just a little while.”

“Alvin,” she whispers, and something in her bends, just enough, and she reaches out for him again. He pulls her in tight and the tears come before she can stop them -- tears for herself, and for Alvin, and for Jude, and mostly for Milla, because she misses her more than she would have thought possible. She misses her certainty and her boldness, the way she could pull them together with just a word. And it’s like a hole inside her, bigger than anything Alvin’s gun could ever do to her, and she sobs with the ache of it.

She cries until her eyes sting, and at some point she must fall asleep, because when she wakes up next she’s lying next to Jude and he’s staring around him in bewilderment, and he looks at her and asks, warily, “Did I… dream that Alvin was here?”

She laughs, and maybe starts crying again, and Jude looks completely confused, but it’s okay. Everything is okay.


End file.
